Chapter 584: A Cast of Entertainers Tearing Down a Battleship

『How is it? Have you figured out the vulnerabilities of the combat droids based on the Hexagon Palace's range of operation and budget estimation...?』

"I see, it really might be more efficient to grapple them rather than clumsily trying to out-gun them."

"I just can't accept that when I punch them, they brace themselves and tank it, but when Gazelle twists them, their heads pop right off!!"

"I told you, it's the joints... And at least aim for the face while you're at it."

"I can't take this anymore, Captain. We're supposed to be playing a sci-fi game, so why are these guys the only ones using Primitive Martial ArtsPrimal Combat...?"

"...Well, once they introduced parameters for close-quarters skills, it was obvious some people were going to dump all their points into it."

Sorry about that, I've been playing nothing but action games lately, so it's just a habit. But hey, I also took piloting skills, so I shouldn't be as much of a meathead as Rhino, who min-maxed entirely into pure power.

Seize the initiative, interrupt their movements, and correct the AbominationsBugs. The evil-shattering holy fists of the Iai Fist Style can even pull off joint locks via spear-hand strikes.

Post-update GalTra uses a slightly unique stat system where parameters are merged into "Action Skills", so I couldn't replicate the exact same movements, but thanks to the "Close-Quarters Combat Skill" (a fusion of STR and AGI) and the "Small/Medium Craft Piloting Skill" (a fusion of DEX and VIT), the resulting build leaves me with very few complaints.

"Any word from Python?"

"He was grumbling something about 'my workload just increased'."

"...Which means his 'work' is heading our way. Gazelle! Rhino! We've got company!!"

"Don't be an idiot, Fox! We're the company here!!"

The sheer level of relaxation I can bust out at a friend's house is officially endorsed by the Crystal Scorpions. I mean, just showing my face causes everyone from babies to grandpas to swarm me for a game of soccer... Honestly, wouldn't it be fair to call us lifelong friends at this point? Makes me blush.

『Oh, large-scale Batoroids designed for suppressing alien beasts. And the artificial-muscle melee type at that... what an incredibly tasteful choice...』

"Specifically speaking!?"

『That type's movements reek of living creatures.』

He was speaking casually, but just as Cutting Board—who was probably in the middle of exchanging enough massive firepower to vaporize a thousand humans every second and still have change left over—said, approaching us was a giant of armor and muscle easily three meters tall. Unlike the "overly perfect forms" of android-type colors, this one was built with artificial muscles softer and more supple than metal.

And right behind it was a swarm of slaughter-specialized androids. So, what's the plan...?

"Rhino, can you wrestle with that?"

"Obviously I can't pull off a performance that exceeds my parameters."

"And if I try hitting its joints, my own hand is gonna break."

"So we use guns?"

『By the way, the outer shell on that type repurposes materials from armored-class battleships.』

"So it's something we can't pierce unless we use ship-mounted weapons!!"

"Stop whining so much, Wolf... You're gonna break my spirit too."

No, no, it's too early to give up, Fox & Wolf. If we just randomly awaken right here and learn a punch on par with a battleship cannon... No, that's impossible, what do we do.

As if to deliver the final blow to us, who had practically been pushed into checkmate, the muscle droid—which looked like a bear and a gorilla mixed together and solidified with armor—slowly raised its arm... and swung it down at an incomparable speed!!

『You boys have some nice bodies, don't you, brawlers? Care for a little arm wrestling?』

"Go for it, Rhino. I'm the protagonist type who utilizes a good balance of power and speed with technique, so a pure power type is perfect for you, right?"

"I read a lot of early 21st-century mangaRetro Comics, so I know exactly how this goes. The power character who steps up in a situation like this saying, 'I'll test their strength!' ends up being the jobber eighty percent of the time."

"Then be the twenty percent! Now's your chance!"

『Thank you for the delicious honey and the dolls with terrible security, Rokkaku-san. PUNCH!!』

The giant arm swung down—not at us, but, thanks to a twist of its waist, right into the swarm of slaughter-specialized droids following behind it from the rear, blowing them away all at once like bowling pins.

The icon displayed above the muscle droid's head had changed, painting over the color of its owner, Dear Horn, with our side's color... I see, so it has a weakness like this too.

"Amazing, couldn't we just win by using that thing as a shield and pushing forward?"

『Hmm... As an owner of multiple Teraton-Class ships, may I deliver some bad news?』

『I can already see it, but let's hear it.』

『She can probably produce at least 100 of those things.』

You're kidding me, you heavy whale. This isn't the type of NPC that's supposed to come in swarms.

As our naked eyes confirmed the sight of three more muscle droids lumbering heavily toward us as second helpings, our smiles instinctively cramped.

『Ah, hold on. If they're the same model, you can take them down by severing the energy supply MuscleCable on their backs. Heh〜, so the artificial muscle acts as both the cable and the pump.』

"So he says. No way we can break that with blunt strikes..."

"Too bad for them. I have a knife."

"Whoa! A Heavy Armor Processing CuttingHeavy Death Metal Knife!? That's an absurdly expensive piece of gear..."

『Make sure you put in enough work to justify me handing that over to you〜.』

Naturally!!

There's an unchangeable limitation regarding the blade length, but the absolute reliability of its cutting edge means it can functionally ignore the opponent's VIT entirely.

Slipping through the legs of the muscle droid that had joined our side, I closed the distance on the enemy droids, which were dutifully approaching in a single-file line due to their massive size. Naturally, they tried to punch me, but...

"Honestly, calling this Standard TacticsTheory is too cheap a word for it..."

The arm swung down by a power-type enemy is both an opening and a foothold... Whether designed by a genius, an eccentric, or a painfully average developer, creating an enemy like this inevitably leads to incorporating this exact flow. There might be some who intentionally break this inevitability, but that's simply a denial of the premise that "this is the correct way", meaning they haven't actually escaped the inevitability in the end.

"That's one down!"

"Yo Gazelle! I wanna go bowling too, so make sure you dodge perfectly!!"

"Tell me! Before you do it!!"

In this game, the top-tier personally carried weapons all have some sort of connection to Teraton-Class battleships.

The Strongest Katana in the GalaxyOnly-One Item possessed by a certain Old ManPlayer who refuses to flatter, side with, or oppose anyone is rumored to be able to slice into a battleship with a single swing. And even if it isn't that, it'll be a knife made from the exact same material as a specialized cutter used for processing battleship armor, or a Gatling cannon that's literally just a ship-mounted turret being swung around by hand... In short, the weapons the others are using are also anything but ordinary.

"A doll that can't brace its legs can be knocked over with a pinky!!"

The Propulsion Impact Work HammerJet Striker. Not your typical hammer that accelerates via thrust to hit harder... but rather, a striking face that moves back and forth—like a drawer violently shooting out of a shelf—and slams into the target using the exhaust of a jet engine... It is, quite literally, one of the highest-class blunt weapons available for purchase that HitsStrikes purely through PropulsionJet power, sending the deactivated enemy muscle droid flying backwards onto its back.

It's a hammer meant for literally doing carpentry work on Teraton-Class battleships; there's no way a mere 3-meter lump of metal and artificial muscle could withstand it. Conversely, the recoil turned Rhino into a hilarious spinning top as he went flying backwards, but we'll ignore that.

Faced with Enemy Muscle #1 suddenly collapsing towards it, Enemy Muscle #2 chose the response that would result in the least amount of damage... namely, the action of catching it.

"I dunno how to describe it, but this really makes me want to min-max into close combat too. The exhilaration is off the charts."

Bullets flew. A flurry of bullets perfectly threading the needle past four massive bodies—including the muscle droid on our side—began taking down the slaughter-specialized droids one after another. Despite spitting out nothing but weak-willed complaints since earlier, the one with the highest kill score is without a doubt Wolf.

The Gun with Composite Targeting FunctionMultiple Sense. When used in conjunction with dedicated goggles worn on the player's face (or built into their helmet), it borrows the sensor system of a Teraton battleship the player owns or is allied with, allowing the player to land hits exactly where they aim with near-absolute certainty. It's a gun that would make any FPS player either spit out their drink or burst into derisive laughter... In the end, because fleet battles are the deciding factor in this game, it's an ultra-performance large handgun that was allowed to exist.

Aside from its terrifyingly high stat requirements, it's a weapon that turns even players terrible at action games into crack shots with 100% accuracy. Perhaps due to his own prioritization, he was likely already sitting on a kill score of over a hundred just acting as the dedicated trash-mob clearer.

Severing the cable running down Enemy Muscle #2's back. Now it was practically an assembly line. Enemy Muscle #3, pinned down by the falling bodies of #1 and #2, was subsequently toppled over by our allied muscle droid executing a tackle right over the steel corpses, and processed on the assembly line.

"Alright, let's keep moving."

『I've opened the door for you~. Also, I'm moving too, so wait a sec.』

"Man, I'm so glad these slaughter-specialized androids drop ammo."

"Hey, what am I supposed to do about this recoil?"

『Well, the tutorial did mention something about 'using the recoil to spin backwards and strike with your ass'.』

Amidst all this, Fox muttered quietly to himself.

"...I feel like I'm the only one not really contributing much."

Five minutes later.

""『"Help us, Fox!!"』""

"Every single one of you is way too weak at puzzle games...!!"

A mini-game style security system designed for players. Fail to clear it within the time limit and you get sliced into rings, turned into a beehive, or forcibly evicted... Yet, having cleared every single one of them at record speed, the fox-headed player once again solved the puzzle with brilliant dexterity.

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Author's Afterword

Cutting Board and G-Cup Breast Meat belong to the PvP faction, meaning they enjoy the conflict and cooperation between players.

Among the playerbase, there is also the "Seeker" faction, dedicated solely to reaching the edge of this universe.